Fishing where the fish are ...

Those that know me know of my love for the sport known in the UK as American football. Next week Wembley stadium is playing host to two of the top teams in the NFL, The New Orleans Saints and the San Diego Chargers.

American Football catching on in England

Whilst the majority of Brits couldn't care about the game, its worth noting that tickets for the game sold quicker than the latest Robbie Williams concert proving there is a growing fan base in the UK. Many have questioned why the NFL would fly two teams to a foreign country to play a regular season game (this is not an exhibition game it really counts). The answer is simple American Football in its home market has reached saturation point. Everyone who is interested in American football in the US has their team, so when the marketeers get together to try and work out how to sell an extra 20,000 shirts the answer is simple, fish where the fish are. The UK has a large audience of fans who regularly watch every weekend, in fact sky TV shows more live NFL football than British football. By bringing over a game to reward those fans it is hoped (and been proven) the fan base will grow and the all important merchandise sales will increase.

The build up to the Wembley game has already started and last night i had the pleasure of spending an evening with a reporter and two photographers from New Orleans. You can see the full report here of the Saints v Panthers which went out in their newspaper (the Times Picayune) this morning.

It's a long story but over the internet i've been speaking to a great many people in the New Orleans area and i've decided it's about time I went over and saw that part of the world (and at the same time watch more American football). In just about two weeks time i sahll be boarding a plane and flying to the big easy. I plan to stay for about 6 weeks but who knows .....

Why the government has to act

For far too long the estate agents and the banks have been allowed to write their own wage packet. Estate agents have been pulling figures out of the air on house prices knowing as long as they were more than the last company they would get the deal. It was in their interest to put the prices as high as possible as they earn a percentage of that price.

Unfortunately they have been allowed to set whatever prices they wanted too because the banks would loan money to people who had no chance of ever paying it back. In short they don't earn enough. However low early payment schemes that rise after x amount of years convinced people they could.

Well eventually the bubble has burst and because of it the whole country (world) is about to have a very rough ride (and that's an understatement).

I believe we're on the verge of a recession never before seen. As the banks continue to fail and the population gets more and more nervous, what happens is everyone stops spending and the economy comes to a screeching halt. Unsure of what tomorrow holds the population starts sitting on any money they have and as such business start going under, people lose jobs and the whole thing gets into a downward spiral completely out of control. The economy relies on people passing around their money to each other to keep the cogs turning. If we all went to the bank and tried to withdraw what we have there's not enough. The problem is the banks have taken it to extremes in the chase of making their profit levels and earning their million pound bonuses.

If the government don't act to save banks businesses use the ability to trade / pay wages and more and more are thrown onto the dole. Not enough people are in work to support the social security so taxes will go up.

In short the government has to bail out the problem. Having done so they should then throw the bosses in prison for bringing down the country followed by themselves for allowing it to happen. Over the next twelve months its going to be very much a case of survival of the fittest.

Unfortunately the financial bail out has next to zero chance of ever being recovered. It is bad debt being bought and the debt is secured on properties that are grossly over valued. In short it's like expecting a heroin addict to return money they're lent.

London Olympics 2012 Oh dear

Having recently watched the opening ceremony for the Chinese Olympics and heard about the clockwork way the whole event has been organised you can't help but think we're going to shoot ourselves in the foot when it's Londons turn.

Already Seb Coe has been trying to dampen the worlds expectations saying that the Chinese Olympics will be the last ones to have such fantastic venues / opening and closing ceremonies and no other country would ever do the same again.

What he means is we simply can't afford to do it properly. Which leads to the question why did we bid? Does anyone believe had New York won the Olympics they would have toned down the event? I very seriously doubt it. If we can't afford to do the job properly then we should never have pretended that we could. Our bluff was called and unless something happens pretty quickly the country will be severely damaged.

The british are a great nation but we regularly over state our abilities and get caught out. Monty Python hit the nail on the head with this sketch about a business trying to be something it wasn't.



The problem is of course that this will have a lasting legacy on Britain's chances in many more ways. The millennium dome was a complete disaster but had little international effect as the whole world was to busy enjoying their own millennium experience. If we get the Olympics wrong the whole world will be watching.

I really do hope we can pull this one out of the bag and make a terrific advert for this great nation, but I have to admit, the signs are not looking good already.

I wait with baited breath to see the handover ceremony and what we have lined up for the entertainment, I have a horrible feeling it could involve double decker buses and bowler hats, please don't let me be right ...........

Colchester Gladiators v Essex Spartans

One of the big rivalries the Gladiators have is with their nearest rivals the Spartans. Earlier in the year the Gladiators had travelled to the Spartans home ground and beaten them convincingly. The Spartans came to Colchester a few weeks ago intent on returning the compliment. Watch the video to see the outcome. Unfortunately I wasn't at the game as I was shooting a wedding. The same will happen this Sunday when the Colchester Gladiators travel to play the South Wales Warriors in the wild card play offs. I will have to ensure my phone is on silent as the text messages relaying the score will no doubt start coming in shortly after kickoff.

Been trying to keep up with the portrait / wedding shoots lately so the blog has been a little idle. I'll upload some stuff soon.

Breaking things

There are two times when anything breaks

1. When you need it.
2. When you've just spent a load of money on it.

Had my car serviced and MOT'd last week. It has decided it doesn't want to work any more.

Campbell and Serenas wedding at the Felix hotel

I was lucky enough to recently be chosen to photograph the wedding of Campbell and Serena.

It was a truly fantastic day and I know everyone had a great time (including me).

Check out their fantastic wedding cake, I can tell you it smelt absolutely incredible. All that white chocolate and me without a fork ...... It was made by a company called choccywoccydoodah in Brighton. Check out their website for some amazing creations.

Click on the image or here to have a sneak preview of some of their wedding pictures. A truly wonderful day.

All around the world

It's been a while since i checked out my stats on my web page so i thought I'd take a look.

Of the last 500 people who visited the majority (348) were from the UK. It would also appear that people in Ireland and America have been paying me a few visits too.

It always amazes me that people from all over the world can come and check out my work. I often wonder what makes someone in Australia or Taiwan type Martin Wilmott into google but they do.

Perhaps they saw my work somewhere or read an interview on line, I guess for the majority I'll never know but its kinda nice when I get the occasional e-mail from someone overseas who I've never met.

My latest project is really starting to pick up steam and is getting very exciting. However it may mean I have to seriously restrict my photography work. keep your eyes peeled on here and facebook (just send a friend request) for hints and announcements.

I've been toying if I should run one last "shoot to sell" course. If you think you may be interested drop me an e-mail.

Ron and Charlene's Wedding at Crondon Park

A few weeks back I had the honour of being asked to photograph Ron and Charlenes wedding.

It was a great day and the weather held out making a fantastic day even better.

For a sneak preview of some of the images from their wedding day click on the picture or click here.

Where to buy cameras that take GREAT pictures

Pin It I had a little chuckle to myself today. One of the things that can become annoying is when people see your work and say something like, wow what a great picture what camera do you use?

I heard the perfect reply today, "I got it from this really great shop where Shakespeare bought all those great pens that wrote his books!"

In short cameras don't take great pictures, people do. I grow tired of people telling me how many mega pixels their point and shoot is .... so what? When people start talking about mega pixels to me, it just shows that they have fallen for the manufacturers marketing gimmick. Let's face it you can get a six mega pixel on a phone these days, does anyone really believe they'll get great images with the lenses they use? ........ perhaps they do.

Note to self

1. Update blog!

But seriously I'm a little snowed under at the moment with several shoots all taking place at around the same time and also a major project ongoing that could see me changing careers .......

More to come when several decisions have been made.

A Commercial Shoot

A few weeks ago I set about a different style of commercial shoot. Basically its an advert for the Colchester Gladiators American Football Club. Being the marketing manager for the team its my role to raise the profile and attract more and larger sponsors. Those that know me know I like to work outside of the box (in fact most of the time I refuse to acknowledge a box exists).

I always stress, "if you want to be noticed do something noticeable."

Anyway after several rewrites and plenty of takes this is what we finished up with. Hope you enjoy it!

This is just the first of four.

Portrait Training Day

Yesterday was the latest "day of discovery" lifestyle portrait training days that I run at the Pontlands park hotel.

I started these courses because I always find it's easier to show someone what to do than to try and tell them.

I always have great fun teaching these courses and meet some great people. It's surprising the energy a group of photographers can create as the creativeness starts to take over and confidence grows.

Big thanks goes out to everyone who came along and I look forward to seeing your images. Also thanks to our great models.

We were really lucky with the weather but I guess as it's the start of the British summer that's how it's going to be from now on ..yeah right.

Andrea Simmons who came along yesterday kindly sent this image of me teaching yesterday. Although I think she caught me mid sentence or perhaps I was chewing a mint.

I'm pretty confident everyone left with a lot more confidence with new found skills and abilities. Also I have a whole new bunch of new friends.

Weddings at the Landmark hotel

Yesterday I was honoured to be employed to shoot a wedding in central London.

The west end of London is not the easiest location to work, mainly down to the 24hour traffic that sucks the life out of the city. I must admit looking out of the window in the morning didn't help, driving snow.

Luckily enough the snow soon melted long before the cameras came out of their bags however it was still very very cold and the wonderful bride and groom were like troopers never complaining once.

The wedding reception was booked for probably my favourite hotel in the city the Landmark. take a few minutes to look around their website and you'll see why its a great favourite with photographers, an absolutely stunning venue.

Not only is the venue fantastic but the staff work very hard to ensure the customers are completely satisfied (including the workers). The serving staff are all full time (rare at most hotels) and as such are well drilled ensuring everyone at the table gets served their meal at the same time. Little things like this go a long way in making a difference.

All in all a fantastic wedding made even better by great service and a wonderfull venue.

Blackberry 8310

I have a new toy!!

The other day I received a phone call from O2 telling me that they were changing my tariff as the one I was on was so old it had become defunct (I've had the same number since 1994).

Taking advantage of the situation I told them I needed an upgrade to which they agreed. I searched the phones available and came across the Blackberry 8310 which took my fancy.

It arrived the next day and after a small hiccup of having to wait a further 48hours to be hooked up to the wireless network I began playing.

The Good points. I can now receive and send e-mail without a computer, a real bonus for me as I spend long periods away from the office. I can search the Internet for basic websites again really handy when looking for hotel addresses phone numbers etc. it has a 1 gig memory which can hold loads of mp3 music tracks and so replaces my mp3 player. The in built camera has a flash (hoorah) so that solves the problem of taking a small camera every where I go (I don't think it will be replacing the Nikon just yet though). It also has various neat widgets that allow things to happen i.e. updating my facebook page or even (so I'm told) this blog (I haven't tried it yet).

Now the bad points, firstly I must emphasis I'm very pleased with the phone and these are just things I have come across and not worked out how to solve as yet. Every time I receive an e-mail the phone vibrates. Also there's no spam filter on the e-mails. When you add together the fact the phone vibrates when they arrive and the fact I rarely turn my phone off I've been woken up several times this week at 2 in the morning by e-mails offering to sell me various gadgets to make a certain member of my anatomy bigger, not very impressed !! The in built sat nav is poor in that although it can give you a root and you can follow it on the screen it doesn't talk so it is of no use when driving, although admittedly would be good if you had to walk somewhere.

After a couple of days surfing I started to get the following message, "a problem occurred while trying to render the page" this started on a few sites and very quickly spread to every web site. The cure I found was this, open the browser, select the options menu. Then select the Cache Operations, delete the content cache ...... make sure the browser configuration is set at the standard default. That did the trick for me and it's now working fine.

All in all a great phone, i'll just have to learn to switch it off at night, although there is a setting for that to happen automatically and then turn itself back on in the morning!

Bingo Lotto

I was asked last weekend to do some publicity shots/ PR for the British American football association and the Bingo lotto TV show.

The basics of it are the Bingo lotto launched last week and had a large photo call in Trafalgar Square. The hosts of the show, Joe Pasquale and Suzanne Shaw were there as well as representatives from various sports from all over the UK.

A percentage of the money raised from Bingo lotto goes back to sports. As well as Joe and Suzanne Antonio Fargas was also their as a guest of British American football.

Antonio is best known in the UK for playing the part of Huggy Bear in the 70's show Starsky and Hutch. He also spent time in the jungle along side Joe Pasquale in the show "I'm a celebrity get me out of here". A slightly less known fact (at least in the UK) is that his son, Justin, plays for the Oakland raiders as a running back in the NFL. As can be seen here all the celebs were more than happy to pose with members of the Colchester gladiators youth team after the all important PR shots had been captured.

Baddow Camera Club

Just a quick line to say thank you to all the members of the Baddow Camera Club for asking me along to speak. I hope you all enjoyed the talk and perhaps found a new approach to taking some images.

If anyone is looking for a friendly camera club in the local area I would certainly recommend they give this club a look.

I hope you all had as much fun as I did.

Wedding at London Zoo

Ever since the laws were relaxed about where people could get married couples have taken advantage of some excellent and exciting venues.

I was recently commissioned to capture a young couples special day at London Zoo.

Click on the picture see some (about a third) of the images.

It was an excellent day with lots of fun and laughter along the way.

Pre Wedding Photography

Would you buy a car without a test drive? In a previous career I sold Land Rovers, without blowing my own trumpet I like to think I was reasonably succesfull and won several holidays for my efforts (including two to Canada).

One of the reasons for my success was letting the product do the selling. Every customer was offered a test drive, so they could experience what words cannot explain.

This is something I have carried over into my photography business. Every couple that contacts me regarding a wedding gets offered a free pre wed photoshoot (where posible). No charge and the pictures are uploaded on the web soon afterwards to help the couple decide.

Picking a wedding photographer is a huge decision for any couple, deciding who to trust to capture their wedding day. I strongly believe couples should have the opportunity to experience how a photographer works and to see their own images. The days of old albums with the best 50 shots of 10 years work crammed in are in my mind over (and good riddance).

Who wants it more?

Last night was the end of the season for the professional American football league (NFL) in America.

The last game of the season is a big match up between the AFC and NFC champions called the superbowl. This year the New York Giants were squared up against the New England Patriots.

The Pariots were favourites by a long way and had managed to go the whole season without loosing a match (American football does not have draws). Neither of these teams are my team but I must admit I do tend to go for the under dog and as the Giants had travelled to London and played at wembley earlier this year I was hoping they could pull off a massive upset.

The game kicked of at about 11.30pm and finished at about 3.30am but was one of the best games i've ever watched. It came right down to the last few seconds with new england leading. A fantastic play saw the Giants QB scramble away from a definite sack and throw a pass to a receiver who made a catch that will probably not be bettered for many years. To cut a long story short the Giants came out winners in a game that a Hollywood scriptwriter would have been proud of.

The catchphrase the NFL had used in marketing the superbowl this year was "who wants it more" The QB scramble and catch were certainly proof that the Giants wanted the win. Who wants it more is something that could be used when assessing your own business ..... you or your competitor.

Safe is risky!

OK it may sound strange but I can promise you one thing, in the business world the most risky thing you can do is play it safe ...... So then it stands to reason the safest thing to do is take risks. Don't believe me? Find a self made millionaire (or for that matter a successful business) that hasn't taken a risk.

Can you imagine the conversation Simon Woodroffe must have had when he was trying to tell people how his Yo Sushi restaurants would work ....... Conveyor belts would carry food past people who would take it if they wanted it ..... a bit like the generation game.

I've always said if you want to be noticed do something noticeable. Believe me it works!